I really hate commercials that spend time trying to play upon the fears of others. Over the last few weeks I have seen a couple of new products being commercialized heavily and I find it disturbing. First its what I am calling the “Bully backpack”. It’s an ad on TV showing kids wearing this backpack at school and if a bully picks on you then you pull the tab and it sends of a loud alarm much like what you hear from a car alarm and teachers come running to the child’s aid with a look of worry and concern. (You have to see the commercial. It’s absurd.)

Somehow I think people that buy these for their kids are really desperate or have never been bullied to know this won’t work. I detest the notion that the commercial preys on the fears of parents trying to defend their kids from bullies. How long before they kids in schools start recognizing the backpacks and run by and rip the strip to signal the alarm only to have teachers and annoyed and the student further ridiculed. I am sorry but this isnt a solution. The REAL solution is the “0 tolerance” technique which while schools say they enforce they rarely do. Schools are so often afraid to confront the child’s parents for fear of retribution and law suits. This is where it has to start. Schools need to single the child out and have them removed from the school. This sends a message to other students as well as the parents of bullies. I have seen schools do more to kids who bring a butter knife to school then tactics applied to bullies.

Many districts in the nation have gone the direction of building new high schools with no lockers. They have also supplied the students with notebook computers instead of books. This is another tactic that schools feel is a win in reducing the schools “liability” in having students store things in individual lockers. They can’t control what students are doing with lockers so they removed them all together under the auspices of “They aren’t needed if there are no books.”. Its sad that it has come to this. Now schools are taking it one step further to ban school backpacks all together. I saw one teacher quoted as saying “some students find the need to carry rotten eggs and other items that are disruptive to class.”. It really is simple. If the child is disruptive, TAKE THEM OUT! You do it with one or two and the rest will line up quickly. Zero tolerance is just that. ZERO TOLERANCE!